Subject: Re: How do I start ppp without being root
To: Roger Fischer <roger@badger1.net>
From: Dan McMahill <mcmahill@mtl.mit.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 03/28/1998 13:42:12
In message <l03102801b142ee8eb2b0@[192.168.0.3]>, Roger Fischer writes:
>I don't like having to SU everytime I start PPP.
>I did a chmod o+x on all the ppp-scripts and I checked that pppd is
>other+x, but still if I try to start ppp as anything other than root, I get
>permission denied.  How can I change this?
>

I got around that by running ppp in demand dial mode.  Then I put
pppd in /etc/rc.local so it was automatically run as root on
startup.  To make the connection hang up without waiting for the
idle time out, I would simply power cycle the modem.

If this won't work for you, you may check the permissions on /dev/tty00
or /dev/tty01 (which ever one your modem is on).  I think the default
is something like:

dan@dinah-moe (110)-% ls -l /dev/tty01
crw-------  1 uucp  wheel   12,   1 Mar 27 22:37 /dev/tty01

This will probably stop pppd from running if you're not root.

I have my other port set as:

dan@dinah-moe (109)-% ls -l /dev/tty00
crw-rw-rw-  1 uucp  wheel   12,   0 Mar 25 18:48 /dev/tty00

so I could write some software that talked over that port without
being root.

Hope this helps 

Dan